Shenandoah Bible Baptist Church
Rebuilding the Wall 17
- New Miah, please, New Miah chapter 10. New Miah chapter 10. Thinking about that crystal river we were just singing about. Shout, we gather at the river. You read Revelation chapter 22. It comes out of the throne of God and the tree of life on either side. Wow. Brother Shank, it says that if I'm not mistaken, it's been a minute since I read it, but there's fruits on the tree and it's for the healing of the nations. Wow, we just get to, I wonder what that fruit is. You think it tastes like baby back ribs? I don't know. I don't know what it tastes like, but it's fruit, amen? So praise the Lord. We have fruits in our mind. I wonder if there's different types of fruits than heaven that we don't know about. And praise the Lord. I won't get off on the sock feet and down the streets of gold anymore, okay? We'll move on from all that. But I just look forward to heaven, amen? It's coming, sounding sweeter every day. Praise the Lord for it. Chapter 10 of Nehemiah. Now we've been going through Nehemiah and we've walked through it verse by verse. And wouldn't you know it in this chapter? There's a whole bunch of names. Don't fear, don't get up, don't get nervous now. Pastor John, you can pronounce every one of those names. You never know, okay? But aren't you glad for those first letters that are so easy to pronounce, amen? All right, so look at the last verse of chapter nine. Would you please? Nehemiah, last verse of chapter nine, verse 38, it says, and because of all of this, we make a sure covenant and write it and our princes, Levites, and priests seal unto it. Now remember what's going on here? We've got Nehemiah eight where they've brought the Word of God out, Ezra has read it. Remember from the rising of the sun till midday and then they couldn't get enough of it and they were reading it and they were hearing it and then we got into the letter part of eight and into nine and they wanted more of it and then they had teachers that were explaining the Word of God and they were having a Bible study continually and just enjoying it. And then they saw the feasts that they were supposed to be keeping, like the feasts of the tabernacles, right? Remember those little huts that they put up? They called it booths in the scriptures and that they were supposed to abide in those and remembering when they came out of Egypt in the wilderness and we see all of that. And then in chapter nine, they start going through their history and they start recounting all the things that God had done for them. It's good to remember history. It's good to know history and it's good not to just get rid of history because we need to know the bad and the good, right? We need to know what we shouldn't repeat and we need to give thanks to God for that which was a blessing to us, amen. And so I'm thinking about history as I'm thinking about the July 4th coming around and just preparing things as your pastor and such and just remembering history. You know, we've not always had great history. Some, we've had some good memories and good to history but not everything was great but we need to remember it. We need to acknowledge it and say, we shouldn't do that again. We don't just throw it away. We don't just get rid of it. We learn from it, amen. Just like a man ought to confess sins and grow and learn from it and grow past it, amen? Amen. And so in chapter 10, the reason I read that last verse in chapter nine is because they've made a covenant. They've made a covenant. They sealed their names and said, we're gonna be faithful to the Word of God, the law of God and we're gonna stick to it. Now look at verse one. It says, verse chapter 10, verse one. Now those that sealed were Nehemiah, the Tarshatha, the son of Hacaliah and Z, amen. And so Nehemiah here, remember Nehemiah is the civic leader. He's the man that the king of Persia put in this place. He's not the spiritual leader, but yet he's leading in a spiritual matter here. Isn't that wonderful? You know, in the history of our United States, we've had some presidents and some civic leaders that have led spiritually along for those days, amen? Wouldn't it be great if we got that again? But here he wasn't afraid to lead spiritually as well. And he puts his name on this covenant. Like we talk about the John Hancock, right? Where John Hancock, when the Declaration of Independence, he signed it first and big and said, there I'm putting my name on it. See if King George can read that, right? And he wrote it real big. The idea is could he read it without his spectacles? That's what he meant by that. And Nehemiah is saying here, yeah, I'm a representative of the throne of Persia, but I hold true to my spiritual, my godly heritage, and we're gonna stay by the stuff here, amen? And so that's what he's not afraid to do that. As you move on here, notice it says the tarshatha. Remember again, that's a Persian word for governor. Okay, tarshatha there. As it goes in verse two through verse eight, it starts giving the heads of the priestly houses and the priestly families. Notice verse eight, it says, these were the priests. So then you have your spiritual leaders there, okay? Look at verse nine and the Levites, both Jeshua and then starts to name them all. And it goes down and keeps going here all the way down to verse 13. And here's these chief families of the Levites that have returned back to the land. Then we get to verse 14, the chief of the people and it starts to name all of them. Now consider this, I know that we can't hold up Israel in the church next to you, but just to relate to you, it's like saying the pastoral staff has signed it. The deacons have signed it. Now we have some leaders, some lay folks, some men in the church that are saying, I'll seal that. I'll sign that covenant. I'll get with you, I'll hold to this as well. And if everybody was a preacher, then who would we preach to, right? Come on now, we need a church. We need godly people that, we use the word lay and forgive us for that lay people, but godly people that God has not called into full-time ministry, but has called to be a Christian. And we need that and stay faithful right where God put you. Whether it's in the shop or whether it's over here, delivering mail or driving a truck or making pizza, whatever it is, do what God told you to do and be a shining light where you should be and stay faithful to the word of God. And here we see that the chief of the people. Here's some leadership among the people. Now when you get into this part of the list, verse 14 on down, you don't see all the same names that we saw in the beginning of Nehemiah and in the beginning of Ezra. Some of the names have changed. Well, remember how much time has passed from Ezra to this point in Nehemiah. It's been a little while since we talked about that and I wasn't planning to say that, but it's been several generations, right? Remember, there was 60 or 70 years that have gone by because we had Zerubbabel's time in Ezra 1 and then we had at least that 60 or 70 years in Ezra's time by Ezra chapter, it was at six or seven, Ezra 7, and then Ezra 14 years later, Nehemiah returns. And so it's been some time here and here's some leadership, some heads of the families. Now you would understand this and you'd know this. Certain people can take representation of a family, of a home, of a tribe, and certain people cannot. And though we had a big list of all these folks that returned in the beginning of Ezra and the beginning of Nehemiah, these are people that are authorized to be representative representation of their families, of their tribes or whatnot. These are leadership of the people at the time. Notice verse 28. And the rest of the people, the priests and the Levites, the porters and the singers, the Nethanims and all they that had separated themselves from the people of the lands unto the law of God, their wives, their sons, their daughters, everyone having knowledge and having understanding. Hey, this is a general assembly of the people now, not with names, but hey, we the church, if we can say that, we the church, we the people together, we hold to this covenant. Wouldn't it be something of 2024 that we started having revival and we made up a document and it says, this is what we believe and this is what we hold to. I'm gonna put my name, Brother Gayler, I'm gonna put my name to this thing and I'm not gonna change from it so that 10 years now somebody can still see my names written next to that. Well, the truth is we've already done that. You joined a church and a church believes something. You have a statement of faith. When you join the church, you know what the church stands for, what it believes and by putting your name on the roll, you say, I stand with this church and what they believe as they hold to the Word of God. At the same time as a church member, Brother Marian, keeping that church accountable to hold to the truth, amen. Sometimes it takes a man to stand up and say, no, this is what the Bible says here, amen, amen. I'm not saying, tearing everybody down and coming up and speaking against all these, I'm just saying, go into somebody privately and say, preacher, wait a minute, the Bible says this. That's right of a man to do. If you're a belong to this church and I'm preaching some heresy, come to me privately and say, preacher, what about this part of the Bible? It says this, amen, Brother Jake, amen, amen. He's a real man wearing his camouflage tonight and he told me that. And so a real man ought to be able to stand on the Word of God and know what they believe. Amen, teasing a little bit, having fun. Let's continue here. Notice verse 29, that was the quickest we've ever gotten through 28 verses. I don't know if you noticed that or not. The quickest we've ever gotten through 28 verses. Look at 29, they claved to their brethren, their nobles and entered into a curse and into an oath to walk in God's law. Let me stop there for a minute. They clave, right? They're saying we approve of what the leadership has done. They've sealed this covenant and we agree with them. They claved to their nobles. We're back, yeah, we're with you. Amen, it's like getting behind a deacon. Yeah, we're with you, amen. We're back this thing and it says curse here. They entered into a curse. That's not hocus pocus. That's not some worldly thing that sometimes we think of that literally means to swear an oath. Like they swore it verbally and then they put it down on paper and just that's what it means. And so it says here to walk in God's law, which was given by Moses, the servant of God and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord, our Lord, okay? I didn't catch that earlier. The Lord, our Lord, the two, why would he say that? Well, notice the first Lord is small caps and the second one is not. When that happens there, that Lord with the small caps in your texts there, that's Jehovah, okay? That's Jehovah, Jehovah are Lord, okay? That's what it means there. And his judgments and his statutes, verse 30. And that we would not give our daughters under the people of the land, nor take their daughters for our sons. Interesting. Didn't they already deal with that? Deal with that in Ezra. Remember the end of Ezra? They had to deal with putting away strange wives. Again, let me just address this again. It has nothing to do with race and color and all those things and has to do with spiritual things. Amen. Moses had an Ethiopian woman, did he not? And God didn't correct that, his brothers and sister did, tried to. They started, whatever you wanna say, talking behind his back a little bit. But God said, I'll stand by my man, I called him and he's doing just fine, you get behind him. And this has nothing to do with race and color. And I know history has not always been kind with all those things. And we've not always been kind with all those things. But God, if you look at Ruth, you look at Rahab, you look at some of these others that got, that were, came into the lineage of Christ. They weren't all Jew, Jews, but they believed. And they converted over to say, Jehovah is my God. Amen. And that's what it's about. With the reason why he would say, don't intermingle and don't marry in with these other nations. Just like Solomon, who his heart was taken away from the Lord, trying to please his wives who were worshiping other gods. The Bible literally says he set up high places and allowed these other gods to be worshiped, okay? That's the purpose behind that thing right there. All right, look at verse 31. And if the people of the land bring wear or any victuals on the Sabbath day to sell. Where is merchandise? It's things to buy. Victuals are food or grain, rather, okay? So if they brought these things on the Sabbath day to sell that we would not buy it of them on the Sabbath or on the Holy day. And that we would leave the seventh year and the exaction of every debt. They're getting pretty specific here, okay? Hey, we're not gonna do this. The law says don't do this, so we're not gonna do it. Wouldn't that be something? You know, sometimes it's easy to stand on the, brother Jim, it's easy to get behind the easy parts of the Bible, huh? You know, we join a church and yeah, you preach the gospel and yeah, I wanna get saved, but when the gospel starts preaching of the difficult things. Like we don't take each other to court and sue each other 'cause we're brethren, we're church people. Well, you don't know what this person did to me. Well, I'll just let the insurance figured out and all that. Well, what do you think the insurance is gonna do? They're gonna sue each other. You gotta be careful of these things. Do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah, I'm not talking about just anybody. I'm talking about the church family. God specifically, I wouldn't even plan to preach that tonight. But the Bible says in a new Testament that we aren't to take our matters before the heathen that we are, he says, don't you know that you're gonna judge the world? You're gonna judge angels? That's what he says and I believe the Corinthians, one of the first or second Corinthians. It's harder when we get on those things. It's easy when we're just talking about being saved. But here they're getting into the nitty gritty, if you would. They're putting their, they're sealing their names to say what the law says, the specifics of the law. I'm gonna hold to that. I'm gonna hold to that. Notice it says that they're not gonna buy or sell on the Sabbath, the Holy Day. Some of you may remember when stores around here were closed on Sundays. Okay, now Sunday is not the Sabbath. Let's not get that confused. Okay, Sunday is the Lord's Day. It's the first day of the week, not the seventh day. We don't hold to that Sabbath. Jesus is our Sabbath. Okay, Hebrews teaches that. Okay, however, many people honored the Lord's day back in the day and that was their choice and right to do that. Some people still hold to that and that's wonderful. But here it says at the end of the verse that we would leave the seventh year. Every seven years they took a vacation. See that? Now I'm teasing a little bit on that. That sounds good, doesn't it? Every seven years, just take a sabbatical or whatever you wanna call it, right? Now what that is is literally they would not plant the fields. They would not plant the fields. Can you imagine being a farmer in every seven years, you're not gonna have a harvest? Interesting. But God told them to do that. That takes faith, does it not? Can you imagine? I mean, I know the many of us are not in that farm community but I've lived around farmers and I went to church with them and I once asked a farmer, I said, you ever heard of this, you know, not plant your field every seven years? He said, well, I know it's in the Bible but nobody does that, you know? It's all that and yeah, you can't imagine a farmer not having a yield of harvest every seven years but that's what God said. I want you to please, if you would keep your finger here, go with me back to the end of Second Chronicles. It's just a couple of books over. Nehemiah to the left is Ezra to the left is Second Chronicles and go to the very end of that book. So it's just a few pages back. A few, maybe 10 or 12, but okay. The end of Second Chronicles, it's chapter 36. God says the reason that they went into captivity. Now, if I was to ask you this, say, why did the Jews, why did Israel go into captivity? Say, well, they weren't faithful to the Lord. Well, that's a generic term but God gets very specific why they went into captivity. Notice what it says, the Second Chronicles 36 and verse 20. Look what it says. And them that had escaped from the sword carried heat away to Babylon, so on Nebuchadnezzar where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia. To fulfill verse 21, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah until the, watch this now. Until the land had enjoyed her, what? It didn't say the people. Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man. Not the man for the Sabbath. Remember that? We were just dealt with that Matthew recently. The Sabbath was made for man to give that man rest. But here it says the Sabbath for the land. You know what that is? That's given the land rest every seven years. It's not planting the fields. It's letting the land, I guess, recuperate. He said, why would you do that? Well, God has his way. Did you know that many farmers on a regular basis have to put different chemicals in their ground to make sure that they're getting the yield that they want? I've seen them driving in Michigan in the Southern, Southwest Michigan, where I was just at. It's farm country. It's literally Prairie Baptist Church on purpose, right? It's in the middle of farm field, farms and all that. So I have a farmer that's been in the church. He actually gave the land to the church. There was a different reason for that. He wanted the church to be in Scots and it was a town rivalry right there. But anyways, move it on. But anyway, he would leave, you'd see piles of such in the corner of the field every once in a while. Well, that's line or that's this or that's this. And he's gonna go and he's gonna spread it and then he's gonna get the discs out and disc it up and spread it all throughout the dirt. Why? He's trying to put the right chemical back in the soil 'cause the soil was depleted of this thing it needs, right? Well, they didn't have that access back in these days. Maybe God was just letting the ground recuperate, okay? And he doesn't tell us all why, but he does say here that captivity was because the land could have its rest. Notice the verse here. It says halfway through until the land had enjoyed her sabbas for as long as she laid desolate, she kept sabbath to fulfill three score in 10 years. That's why they went into captivity 'cause they had left the obedient, the where God said the obedient let your land rest every seven years. Specifically, he said that. And so back in Nehemiah here, it says that they're covenant, they're stating that we would leave the seventh year. And then it says, and the exaction of every debt, verse 31, the exaction of every debt. That's the usury. That's that interest. Remember, that's already been dealt with in Nehemiah where they found that the brethren were loaning money to each other and requiring interest upon it. So much so that some were going into bondage 'cause they couldn't pay it back. And Nehemiah had to strongly correct that and say, you're not gonna do that. The law says we aren't gonna do that. And you're gonna restore your brethren and you're gonna buy back anybody you can. And he had to come back and just set 'em straight as the civil leader and say, no, God doesn't want this. Amen. I'm gonna be great. Imagine. Some civil leaders by the shank and say, God doesn't want this, we're doing right. Amen. Praise the Lord for you all that are faithful and do what God's asked you to do. Praise the Lord for it. Man, ask for me in my house, we're gonna serve the Lord. Amen. Many of you have made that decision. Praise God for it. Notice verse 32. Also, we made ordinances for us to charge ourselves yearly with the third part of a shekel for the service of the house of our God. What, what was that? They, they decided on a tax. Do you see that? They're gonna charge themselves yearly a tax for the house of God. That's not tithe. It's gonna talk about tithe here in just a minute. That's not the tithe. That's above the tithe, it's a tax. If I can say it that way, maybe you don't wanna call it that, but it says here to charge ourselves yearly with the third part of a shekel. Okay, the third part of a shekel is not a lot of money. I like the Schofield reference. I still use that and Schofield says in his day that it was roughly between 20 and 25 cents yearly. But nowadays with inflation, that's somewhere around $10, okay? Maybe a little less than that, $10, all right? Well, when you pay personal property tax around here, I'd gladly change and trade that for $10 a year to give to the church, okay? I'd gladly do that, all right? But moving on, okay, praise the Lord for that. So what they're doing is saying, hey, we don't want God's house to go without. We wanna make sure it has everything it needs. So above our tithe, we're just gonna everybody in the land, we're gonna give a third part of a shekel, okay? Now, I'm not holding to this and I'm not gonna charge people a tax to come to church, okay? Have a bucket out the door. This is not your tithe, just to come in the door, you gotta put a $10 bill in. No, we're not gonna do that, okay? We're not gonna do that. Verse 33, why? It says for the showbread, for the continual meat offering, for the continual burnt offering of the sabbaths, of the new moves, for the set feasts, for the holy things and for the sin offerings to make an atonement for Israel and for all the work of the house of our God. In previous times, we looked through those different offerings and we won't get into that tonight. But there was so much that was required there and they wanted to make sure they didn't miss anything. Verse 34, and we cast the lots among the priests, the Levites and the people for the wood offering to bring it into the house of our God after the houses of our fathers at times appointed year by year to burn upon the altar of the Lord, our God as it is written in the law. Here is above that third of a shekel. Now they're saying we're gonna appoint certain families every year that need to bring in the wood. The wood for the offerings, for the sacrifices, right? Okay, the shanks probably wouldn't appreciate that very much. They worked hard to have wood to heat their home, right? They wouldn't appreciate that too much, but listen, there needed to be wood and they were distributing between the people that everybody would do their part. That's a good thing. That's a right thing. I don't believe a church is a place that we come to warm a pew. A church is a place we come to serve and say, "What can I do? "Let me do my part to serve God together with the family." Amen. And many of you do. Praise God for that. Praise God for that. Now when it says cast the lots, okay? This is before the time of the Holy Spirit was freely between all believers. Casting the lots was a thing that they literally, it's similar to putting names in a hat, if you would, and they prayed and they'd ask God to show us by drawing of the name. It was a matter of faith. If you would, don't get way off base on this thing. It was just a matter of faith and saying, "God, we need to determine who's gonna do what, "so would you direct this to show us who it is?" And it was before the Holy Spirit gave that direction openly to believers. And so we don't cast lots anymore. We have the Holy Spirit of God who directs us. Amen. Okay, when I go to somebody and ask them to do something in the church, it's because the Holy Spirit puts them in my mind and in my heart and says, "That's who I want to do. "That's what I want, who I want to fill that role." And that's important that we do that. Verse number 35. And to bring the first fruits of our ground and the first fruits of all fruit, of all trees, year by year unto the house of the Lord, first fruits. What does that mean? That means exactly what it sounds like, okay? The first part of the harvest. In other words, God doesn't get leftovers. He gets the first part. Now tithe means 10%, a tenth, that's what tithe means. But it's a tenth that is collected first. Let me put it this way. When I write out my tithe check, right? I know many of you do it online and you're saying, "No, I can't believe you're saying "right to check anymore." Yes, I still do it, okay? 'Cause it costs money to do it online, amen. Okay, so I do it on the check, all right? So I still write my tithe check. You know what I do? That's the very first thing I do when I get paid. I just take it very literally 'cause God talks about first fruits in the Bible. And I don't want to give God my tenth of whatever's left over after paying my bills. I don't want to do that. 'Cause God says, "Give a tenth of all your increase." So the first thing I do, and I believe a tenth, this is my personal opinion, but I believe a tenth is where we start. And I believe we grow from that as God leads us in our hearts, okay? Mrs. Woolard and I, we give above that because a tenth is where we start. And as God leads us so, we move it. I like to move my tithe up when I move my faith promise up because I believe God's house is important and so is missions, and that's just what we do. That's what we believe, so that's what we do. But I do it out of the first fruits. This is the first check I write. And I know it's hard in today's world, okay? Because so many of us have this taken out on the first day of the month and this taking out on the fifth day of the month and this and this and this and this. But God knows my heart that when I'm laying out my budget, it's the first thing that's done. And it's the first check I write. And I take that very literally, I wanna please the Lord on that thing. Notice verse 36, just hurry into the end here. Look at it, it says also the first born of our sons and of our cattle as it is written in the law. What do you mean? You're gonna give your first son the first cattle to the Lord? No, we're not talking about making the sons pass through the fire like the heathen kings. We're not talking about that. We're not talking about sacrificing children. We're talking about redeeming children. What did Mary and Joseph do after Jesus was born? They went to the temple, didn't they? Eight days later, didn't they? It went to the temple. Now it was circumcision and all that, but there was redemption. The Bible says I could give you all the passages and I believe you'll wanna look in Exodus 13 and Leviticus 27 if you're curious about that. Leviticus 13 and excuse me, Exodus 13 and Leviticus 27, if you wanna look at that. It talks about when a child opens the matrix or the first born son into a family that he must be redeemed by a sacrifice before God, okay? In other words, you're saying Lord, thank you for this. It's a memory of when the children of Israel were to take the blood and put it on the door posts and save the first born of the house. It's a memory and of course that points forward to the cross with Jesus Christ. And so God said, redeem the first born son back, just like you did in Egypt, like one day I will again. And so that's what that was. It says the first born of our sons and of our cattle as it is written in the law and the first slings of our herds and of our flocks to bring to the house of our God unto the priests that minister in the house of our God. Verse 37, and that we should bring the first fruits of our dough and our offerings and the first of all manner of trees, of wine and of wool unto the priests, to the chambers of the house of our God and the ties of our ground unto the Levites that the same Levites might have the ties in all the cities of our tillage. So I'm focusing in here the ties and all the cities of our tillage. We understand ties and bringing in the offerings and such. But remember, they're not traveling to Jerusalem every time they're to give a tithe. Remember there was a tribe in Israel that was supposed to be for the Lord? What tribe was that? Anybody remember? Levi, Levi was dedicated tribe to the Lord. God did not give them land in the land of Israel because the Lord was their inheritance. Remember that? Okay, so what did he do? He gave them cities throughout every tribe. And so this city would be a Levitical city. And this city over here would be a Levitical city. And this city over here would be Levitical. I believe if I'm not mistaken, I believe the Levites. Remember when Solomon's son, Rhea Bohm, remember when he was foolish and followed the men of his day and not the wise men? And 10 tribes went to the north and Judah come to the south and all that. I believe that many of the Levites came with him to the south to stay true to the Lord down in Jerusalem. What did they come from? They came from all the towns, the cities that God had given them throughout all the tribes, okay? So here they paid their tithes in all the cities of their tillage in the local area, their local church, if I can say it that way, they paid their tithes to the Levites. Now look what it says, verse 38. And the priest, the son of Aaron shall be with the Levites when the Levites take tithes. There's a priest there, there's a representative there. And the Levites shall bring up the tithe of the tithes unto the house of our God to the chambers into the treasure house. I know I'm going quick for you tonight, forgive me. But in other words, they paid their tithes locally to the Levites, a priest was there to oversee it. And then they took 10% of that collection and then they took it to Jerusalem to be put at the temple. That's what it's saying, okay? Now in Israel at that time, the temple was the house of God. We don't belong to some hierarchy of churches here. We're independent. We don't pay a 10th part of all our offerings to some council or some convention. We don't do that. This is the church, it's different now. We're independent. This is our final authority right here. Amen. When we choose missionaries, it's because God brought them to us and the Holy Spirit said, you take them on, not because some convention did. Amen. All right, so that's important there, but moving on. Verse 39, look at now, the last verse. For the children of Israel and the children of Levi shall bring the offering of the corn and of the new wine and of the oil unto the chambers, where are the vessels of the sanctuary and the priests that minister and the porters and the singers? And we will not forsake the house of our God. And that ends the chapter. In other words, here, I'm gonna give you hope. You ready? In other words, listen now. They said, we wanna do right by God and we're gonna take care of all the needs of his house. That means we're gonna pay our ties. We're gonna give offerings above that. We're gonna do the work of the ministry. We're gonna supply the wood and we're gonna supply this. And we're gonna do what's necessary according to the law to do right by God. So that his house is not forgotten, forsaken, or the work of the ministry is not hindered. Amen. Sometimes the work of the ministry is hindered because there's nobody to do the job. I pray that we don't have to shut down the nurseries 'cause there's nobody to do the job. Amen? I pray that we don't have to shut down the school 'cause there's nobody to do the job. Amen? You with me now? Okay, the work of the ministry must go on and it takes sacrifice from God's people to say, God wants his work to go on, I'll do it, somebody's gonna do it, Lord, use me. Here am I, send me, right? Amen, amen and amen. And a little bit longer tonight, forgive me, but I told you, I was ready, I was ready to go. I was trying to finish the chapter. Amen, amen and amen. Our offering plates will be in the back on our way out. Thank you for being faithful and your ties and offerings. And let's ask God's blessing as we leave. Don't forget choir, we'll have a run through. And your children, they're still enjoying their, what are we calling them now? Pathfinders and rubies, they're enjoying that on the summertime and you and your church and all those things. So don't forget them, please take them home with you. Your children, that'd be great. Let's pray. Lord, I love you and I will thank you for your word tonight. God, how precious it is and how wonderful it is when we study it. Not just read it, but take time to study it and know what it means. And God, thank you for teaching us. Thank you for this example. You gave us Nehemiah 10 for a reason. And they made a covenant here and they held to your law on purpose. And Lord, we looked at all these things where they gave their ties, they gave their first fruits, they gave wood, they gave of themselves and they held true to the covenant that saying that they were gonna be true to your word, the law. I pray that we, Lord, would take application from this. That we, as the church, thank you for the church, but Lord, as the we as the church would take care according to hold to the law, the word of God and to make sure that the work of God here in your house is not hindered. Thank you, Lord, that Shenandoah exists and that it is thriving, that it's doing well. Thank you for the godly heritage and I pray that under our watch, Lord, not just mine, but all the folks that are here tonight, the faithful, the remnant, if I can say it that way, Lord, may it not fail, may it not be hindered under our watch and thank you for it. We love you, ask your blessing as we dismiss in Jesus' name.